By Lindsay & Lexie Kite, Ph.D.Originally posted Nov. 2011 and updated every time the modesty/dress code debate makes headlines! Current version: June 2017.

Women and girls are more than just bodies. We all know that, right? Well, you wouldn’t know that if you looked to media, or even sometimes well-meaning religious rhetoric, for that truth. And you wouldn’t know that if you listened to the way so many of us discuss the topic of appropriate dress, or “modesty,” today. In an inescapable media world that pans up and down women’s bodies and focuses so much attention on their parts, no wonder girls learn to display their bodies as something to be looked at. No wonder girls learn to survey their bodies at all times, and in all things they are wearing, and in all places they are going.

Today in many circles, issues of female “modesty” are very popular. From many religions’ focus on appropriate dress to schools having rules on how high above the knee girls’ shorts can and can’t be or how much bare shoulder is too much – modesty is a trending topic. While reasons for advocating modesty vary greatly, we can attest that far too much emphasis is being placed on arbitrary standards that actually have the effect of sexualizing and objectifying girls from a very young age and keeping us fixated on women as bodies alone.

If you’re pro-modesty (by whatever definition that means to you), then you can and should live it and teach it as a benefit to yourself, not to appear more or less appealing or acceptable to others.

Many cultures and religions teach perspectives on modesty that revolve around the idea that covering up particular body parts to certain degrees is crucial to respecting our bodies, which are viewed as sacred. (For LDS audiences, we have a modesty lesson plan here). Regardless of your spiritual orientation, an open discussion about modesty from the perspective of our research can get us somewhere much more powerful and valuable than the shallow “her shorts are [this] many inches above the knee” and “modest is hottest” mentality so prevalent today. Here’s the truth you can stand behind: We are more than bodies to be looked at.

If modesty is a concept you subscribe to, there is great power in changing the modesty conversation from what you LOOK like to others to what you FEEL like inside. Here are some strategies to shift the modesty conversation in empowering, rather than shame-inducing, ways:

1) Be aware of the role of clothing in girls’ and women’s rampant self-consciousness. Our research echoes that of many others showing self-objectification is epidemic among girls and women today. Self-objectification takes place when we internalize an outsider’s perspective of ourselves. We literally picture ourselves being looked at as we go throughout our days, monitoring our bodies and appearance at all times, and research shows it gets in the way of everything we do. Everything. When we have to accomplish a task while also thinking about what we look like while doing it, we’re at a major disadvantage. When we live in a state of perpetual self-consciousness about our bodies, we are left with fewer mental and physical resources to do anything. Girls and women who are in a state of self-consciousness perform worse on math tests, logical reasoning tests, athletic performance, and have lower sexual assertiveness (including the ability to say “no” when needed). Self-objectification leads to an increase in disordered eating and cosmetic surgery procedures, low participation in leadership positions, and leads girls to quit pursuits of math and science at greater rates.** Girls and women LOSE — and so do the men all around us — when we fixate on bodies.

Interestingly, there is power in clothing to alleviate self-objectification.This benefit to modest dressing can be significant for girls and women who feel fixated on their appearance.Studies on self-objectification show us that “clothing represents an important contributor to the body and emotional experience of contemporary young women” because body-baring clothing leads to greater states of self-objectification, body shame, body dissatisfaction, and negative mood***. What this tells us (and what our own experience living in female bodies tells us is a no-brainer) is that when we wear clothing that is especially revealing or emphasizing our bodies, we become very self-aware of those parts that are most visible and potentially being looked at. We self-objectify and are in a near-constant state of adjusting our clothing, fixating on what we look like, and looking at other people looking at us. It’s OK to like being looked at, and even to like attention from others for our looks, but if it’s distracting us and getting in the way of progress, happiness, and health — as so much research confirms it is for many — we’ve got to be conscious of the role of our clothing in holding us back mentally. Research shows a level of modesty (that may vary from person to person since modesty and comfort in clothing are subjective) can be an important tool in safe-guarding ourselves and our daughters from being in a constant state of self-objectification.

2) Skip the well-meaning references to modesty making girls “hottest.” Catchy phrases like “modest is hottest” — in a sneaky, fun-sounding way — teaches that girls should dress modestly to look good and receive approval from others, and not for themselves. What if we took to topic of what modesty looks like to outsiders viewing you off the table? What if we promoted the message that it doesn’t matter what anyone — including boys or men at school — think of what you look like, and what does matter is that you don’t exist to be looked at or evaluated or consumed? What if we prioritized how girls and women feel in their own bodies and clothing? What if we helped girls and women consciously consider the way their clothing affects their self-perceptions and self-consciousness rather than the way others might or might not perceive them?

When you teach a girl she is more than a body – that she is capable of much more than being looked at – then she might dress differently than someone who perceives her value comes from her appearance, or the amount of attention she gets from others. Someone who sees herself as a capable and powerful person with a body that can help her achieve great things might act differently than someone who exists solely to look “hot.” She might treat her body differently and think about it differently than she otherwise would in a self-objectifying mindset. If she can be taught that her power comes from her words, her unique contributions, her skills, her mind, and her service, then she will be less likely to seek fleeting attention and power that revolves around her appearance. What this looks like in action, including in clothing choices, is for each woman to decide for herself.

3) When discussing or teaching modesty for girls, leave boys and men out of the conversation where possible. So much talk of modesty includes the effect women’s clothing choices have on males. Many discussions of modesty, from diverse cultural or religious perspectives, revolve around the idea of keeping tempting female bodies and body parts from the gaze of others — particularly men. This privileges the male gaze, in a backward sort of way, and puts females at a disadvantage for being the ones in control of what others think or feel when seeing their bodies. When we speak of modesty strictly in terms of covering our bodies from the sexual gaze of others, we are keeping the level of discourse at the shallow waters of women and girls as bodies to be viewed.

We have very little control of what other people think when they look at us. Even in cultures where women are required to or choose to cover up a great deal, there is still an incredibly high incidence of rape and sexual violence. Covering up has no bearing on men’s ability to control themselves or respect women. We would warn that this perspective on modesty creates a very dangerous and slippery slope that puts full responsibility for males’ inappropriate thoughts – and even their actions – on the shoulders of girls and women. This happens regardless of whether or not those girls or women believe they are dressing appropriately or modestly. If we are teaching the girls in our lives that the primary objective of modesty is to keep themselves covered so boys and men don’t think sexual thoughts about them, then we are teaching girls they are responsible for other peoples’ thoughts and they are primarily sexual objects in need of covering. (See our thoughts about the massive debate on leggings and school dress codes here). No girl or woman’s body is sinful, and no one should be taught that.

Know this and please help us teach this to girls: you could never be clothed perfectly enough to ensure everyone perceives you the way you intend to be perceived. You could never obscure your shape or essence or beauty enough to prevent someone from having inappropriate or sexual thoughts about you and then blaming you for those thoughts. What constitutes “revealing” for one person or family or culture might be fully accepted as “modest” by another person, family, or culture. (We’re referring to definitions of appropriate that can vary significantly but still fall within legal, common public attire and that fit dress codes for certain venues.) Other cultures and religions might perceive your definitions of modesty as being vulgar or far too revealing for their standards. We each must work to define what constitutes modesty for ourselves and our families, and allow all others the same freedom, free from our judgments and comments.

We see why suggestions regarding the length of hemlines and the depth of necklines are important, because we live in a world where studies show girls as young as 6 years old are sexualizing themselves because media messages show them being sexy yields rewards. As we‘ve written about before, people use the excuse that “sex sells,” but we’re buying more than we bargained for. And when we try to teach and enforce appropriate dress by fixating on the inches of skin showing, we are missing the point.

When we judge girls and women for the skin they are or are not showing, we are minimizing them to their bodies and repeating the same lies that females are only bodies in need of judgment and fixing. We are even perpetuating the shame-inducing belief that female bodies are sinful and impure, and must be covered to protect boys and men who can’t be held responsible for their thoughts or actions.

It’s time to stop shaming girls and women into covering themselves and instead start teaching empowering truths that everyone needs to hear: we are more than just bodies to be looked at. When we really begin to believe that, female progress in every imaginable way will move forward. We will spend less money on cosmetic surgery (up 115% since 2000 with 92% of the surgeries performed on women) and every other product we need to “fix” our flaws. We will spend less time hiding and fixing and obsessing over our insecurities beneath our clothes. We will spend less time emphasizing and obsessing over our parts on display in our clothes. We will perform better academically, athletically, and in our careers. We will love other women more and feel more compassion toward them because we will not be judging them as bodies in competition with our bodies. We will feel greater self-love, life satisfaction, and power to live authentically chosen lives. We will pass along all of these truths to the girls growing up and then women growing older in an increasingly objectifying world.

Please pass this along. Let’s change the conversation currently steeped in the negativism of “cover yourself” to the inarguable truth of “you are more than a body” and powerful outcomes will follow.

Illustrations by Michelle Christensen

Need more help developing body image resilience that can help you overcome your self-consciousness and be more powerful than ever before? Learn how to recognize harmful ideals, redefine beauty and health, and resist what holds you back from happiness, health, and real empowerment with theBeautyRedefined Body Image Program for girls and women 14+. It is an online, anonymous therapeutic tool that can change your life, designed by Lexie & Lindsay Kite, with PhDs in body image and media.

Whatever the reason — bad angle, unflattering position, weird filter, googley eye, whatever. You HATE it. We’ve all experienced this one way or another. If not after being tagged in a pic on Facebook, Instagram, or a blog, then in a school picture, family portrait, or whole album of vacation pics. It’s a yucky feeling.

After you’ve exhausted all your untag/hide-from-timeline options, what comes next? For too many of us, the embarrassment of being captured in a less-than-ideal photo isn’t easily brushed off. In a world where girls learn from childhood to monitor their appearance at all times, and where public identities are carefully crafted online at every waking moment, a picture speaks more words than ever. For some, the sight of a photo she deems unattractive is enough to spark thoughts and reactions directly related to one of our favorite (like the bad kind of favorite) subjects: body shame.

You’d think someone who has spent the last decade researching that subject would be immune to the effects of it, right? I should be unflinching and invincible in the face of bad photos of myself, right? Ugh, I wish. Let’s use my own personal example of being captured in a cringe-worthy pic to illustrate what body shame can do to a gal, and how to fight that shame with some healthier options, shall we? I’m not one to hide in a photo. I actively resist the temptation to self-objectify or hold myself back from activities (or photos) because of concern over what I look like while engaging in those activities (or being pictured in those photos). I posed for a group photo and thought nothing of it until Instagram and FB notified me of a newly uploaded photo that had an unanticipated effect: it made me feel sick. Because I hated the way I looked so much. It struck a yucky chord in my brain that told me I was disgusting and everyone on the planet was going to see the documented evidence of how disgusting I was. Sounds asinine, you say? Yeah, definitely.

This is your brain: “That’s not a great photo. Oh well.”

THIS is your brain on body shame: “This photo has captured what I really look like — not what I think I look like. Why didn’t anyone tell me I look so awful? I’m never wearing those clothes again. What made me think I should be in the front of the photo? I’m always going to be in the back now. I can’t wear my hair like that anymore. Is the gym still open so I can go run and burn off the crappy food I ate at the party?” Asinine doesn’t begin to describe it, but the “brain on body shame” doesn’t see the asinine-ness of those thoughts — it takes those thoughts and runs with them. Almost literally. On a treadmill. And not for healthy reasons. But the gym was closed, and thankfully, my education and experience as a body image researcher started to kick in pretty quickly to tell me that what I was experiencing was all too familiar and entirely conquerable.

Shame makes us want to HIDE or FIX the thing that doesn’t meet our standards. That showed up immediately for me in depressing thoughts of planning to hide in pictures, throw out clothes, and burn as many calories as I could quickly. And speak of the devil, beginning with puberty, females are TWICE as likely to experience depression as males. This is directly associated with our objectifying culture, which leads us to evaluate and control our bodies more in terms of our sexual desirability (a.k.a. self-objectification) than our desires, health, or competence. Self-objectification has been linked to way too many negative consequences: disordered eating, plans for cosmetic surgery, diminished mental and athletic performance, anxiety and depression, etc., and these occur among women of all backgrounds.

So, in an objectifying culture that teaches us from birth that we ARE our bodies and that our appearances define our worth, how does anyone survive, let alone thrive? Lexie and I dedicated our PhD research to this question and wrote dissertations on the [invigorating, exciting, incredible] results. In independent studies, Lexie and I both identified resilience research as the light at the end of the dark body shame tunnel.

Resilience theory describes opportunities to call upon resilient traits as “disruptions,” which are experiences that shake us out of our comfort zones and allow us to change in positive or negative ways. Disruptions are occurrences that cause us to feel self-doubt, hurt, fear, or loss. They can be anything from unkind words from a stranger, to a pregnancy, an invitation to go swimming, weight loss/gain, or even the super lame inconvenience of being tagged in a photo you can’t stand. Disruptions are big and small and different for everyone, but the emotions you feel from them lead to opportunities to begin the process of changing. This post is about how to make sure the change is for the better.

In today’s world, too many of us have settled into a comfort zone that is a whirlwind of body shame and appearance anxiety. It is a “comfort” zone because it feels normal, but it certainly isn’t comfortable for those always hiding and fixing their looks as a response to body shame. We are here to assist you with WAY better options than just taking constant hits to your body image and just absorbing it and going about your lives by fixing and hiding. The first step of resiliency is to identify the disruption. Name it. Shine a light on it. Call it what it is: a crappy, painful opportunity for positive change.

Our research confirms several qualities can protect us from the harms of body-shaming disruptions, and that cultivating those qualities can even predict positive outcomes from negative situations. We can use dark, painful incidents as a springboard to healthy choices, happiness, and empowerment. That, my friends, is body image resilience. I promise that if you will work to identify disruptions in your life and use them as opportunities for growth, you can cultivate a million strategies to make those disruptions happy. Today I’ll highlight four of my faves:

Self-compassion

Let’s get lovey up in here. Self-compassion is all about acknowledging that suffering, failure, and inadequacies are part of the human condition, and that all people—yourself included—are worthy of compassion (Neff, 2003). There are three basic components of this strategy that have GOT to be cultivated in the midst of our objectifying culture and self-objectifying tendencies: 1. Self-Kindness: Extending kindness and understanding to oneself rather than harsh judgment and self-criticism; 2. Common Humanity: Seeing one’s experiences as part of the larger female experience rather than seeing them as separating and isolating; and 3. Mindfulness: Holding one’s painful thoughts and feelings in balanced awareness rather than letting them define or overwhelm you.

This strategy lifted me out of the sudden fog of anxiety that accompanied my reaction to the bad photo of myself. I remembered that everyone has had that experience. And it’s just a photo. And my self-objectifying panic slowly started to become more ridiculous. I asked myself, “What is the WORST that could happen because of this?” And my answers were ridiculous: “Someone could see me and think I looked fat and ugly.” That’s about as bad as it got. And guess what? That’s THEIR problem, not yours. And it doesn’t mean ANYTHING in real life. You can demonstrate these aspects of self-compassion by journaling and sharing your experiences with other women who undoubtedly deal with the same objectifying experiences you do. You are not alone in your disruptive experiences. Promise.

Feminist Beliefs

Don’t be scared. Feminism isn’t quite as evil as you may have been led to believe. As Amelia Richards has observed, “body image may be the pivotal third wave issue—the common struggle that mobilizes the current feminist generation” (1998). Whether or not you consider yourself a feminist, you may agree with much of what feminism is all about. Feminist perspectives celebrate diversity among women, provide ways to interpret the objectification of the female body, unite instead of divide women, and give us strategies for resisting oppressive ideals. My early introduction to body image research and activism can be summed up with this: “Feminism appears to be a life raft in the sea of media imagery” for women (Rubin et. al. 2004). You can read more about why feminism became my life raft here.

Research shows us awesome connections between feminist beliefs and body image.** In these studies, feminist beliefs are those that reject ideas of women’s bodies as objects constantly in need of fixing.

Women who had feminist beliefs experienced less shame and body dissatisfaction than women who didn’t subscribe to feminism.

Feminism provides women with an alternative way to interpret objectification, and offers specific strategies to resist these ideologies on a personal and societal level.

One of the most important feminist strategies is maintaining a critical awareness using media literacy to resist cultural messages about women’s bodies.

Women need coping strategies as a buffer against self-objectification, such as decreasing self-evaluative statements (“I look fat today”), substituting self-affirming statements (“I am capable of much more than looking hot”), and cognitive reframing of objectification (“that company wants me to feel bad so I’ll buy their product!”).

Don’t be scared. Go toward the light. These feminist studies also found that finding new ways of inhabiting our bodies is a promising and empowering approach to resisting body shame and self-objectification, which leads to our next characteristic …

Using Our Bodies as Instruments, Not Objects

When women learn to value their bodies for what they can do rather than what they look like, they improve their body image and gain a more powerful sense of control. Ideas of “feminist embodiment” that have been pinpointed in research include using our bodies to dance, play, move, and be outside the confines of being looked at. As early as grade school, research shows that girls’ activities and thoughts are more frequently disrupted than boys, and those interruptions are often related to weight and appearance. Experts suggest we can resist self-objectification by participating in non-aesthetically-focused sports (like competitive team sports) and other kinds of physical activity. Finally, STEP AWAY FROM THE MIRRORS while exercising. Research shows people who work out in front of mirrors can’t perform as well because they are consciously and subconsciously wrapped up in how they look instead of what they can do.

So challenge yourself to be active – run a race, try out a new Zumba class, and prove to yourself that your body is powerful and useful for more than looking good. Plus, we need to set and achieve goals outside of appearance – raise your GPA, volunteer, put yourself out there. Feelings of empowerment come from achievements and they add to your sense of control. Placing higher priority on how we feel and what we do is key to shutting down body shame.

Spirituality

Spirituality is well documented as a key to resilience. Richardson (2002) says being able to flourish in the face of disruptions requires increased energy to grow, and resiliency theory states the source of that energy is a spiritual source or innate resilience (p. 313). Resilience has been called “our innate capacity for well-being” (HeavyRunner & Morris, 1997, p. 2). Many participants in our PhD studies cited some form of spirituality as a positive force that led them out of hard times relating to their bodies, whether through religious worship, meditation, or acknowledging the guidance of a higher power. When women are able to place their lives and experiences in the context of a bigger picture — one where they aren’t defined by their appearance alone — those body-related concerns lose power and shame is lessened. If you can say a prayer, read scripture, meditate, attend a worship service, or any other way to tap into your spirituality, you can access power to put body-related disruptions into a more holistic perspective.

The second you feel shame – the specific shame YOU feel that compels you to hide a part of you or fix yourself to meet an ideal – the disruption has begun. This shame can no longer be a normal, everyday part of your life you cope with. You’ve named it. You can’t be comfortable with it any longer. It’s time to grow from it. Start that growth process by focusing on self-compassion, considering your own (or learning about) feminist beliefs, using your body as an instrument, and tapping into a spiritual source of power to remind you that you are more than just a body and you are not alone.

Without these strategies, the experience of being so unexpectedly shaken by that less-than-ideal photo of myself could have led directly to awful options my “brain on body shame” came up with. But, as inconsequential as the experience might seem, I was able to use it as a disruption that prompted me to come up with better plans, like turning to Lexie for a pep-talk (twin bonding!) and writing this post. Painful disruptions don’t need to drag us down deeper into the pit of shame and self-objectification!

Need more help developing body image resilience that can help you overcome your self-consciousness and be more powerful than ever before? Learn how to recognize harmful ideals, redefine beauty and health, and resist what holds you back from happiness, health, and real empowerment with the Beauty Redefined Body Image Program for girls and women 14+. It is an online, anonymous therapeutic tool that can change your life, designed by Lexie & Lindsay Kite, with PhDs in body image and media.

*Werner, E.E. and Smith, R.S. (1982). Vulnerable but Invincible: A Longitudinal Study of Resilient Children and Youth. New York: McGraw-Hill.

**Cash et al., 1997; Dionne et al., 1995; Rubin et al., 2004

This post was originally posted in August 2013 and updated again in May 2017.

POP QUIZ: If you know a girl or woman who has lost weight but you don’t know how or why she did it, what do you do?

A: Compliment, compliment, compliment! The more praise about her fab new bod, the better.

B: Don’t say anything in person, but next time you see her on Instagram or Facebook, throw down a little “You look so skinny!” on a couple pics to let her know you noticed.

C: Talk about anything else besides her looks. How much fun she is. The weather. Her job. Your lunch. That dog walking by. Anything else.

This might feel like a trick question because looks-based compliments are good, right? I mean, we live in a world where the vast majority of girls and women feel terribly about their bodies, so hearing nice things about their looks has to help, right? It turns out that is not always the case. Answers “A” and “B” might actually do more harm than good, and we just got an email from an awesome Beauty Redefined fan that is the perfect case study to help us teach why “C” is the best answer of them all:

“Last year, four months after giving birth, I began focusing on getting healthy, eating right, and exercising. Over the course of the next six months I lost a significant amount of weight and I felt good — better than I had in years and years — so I was happy. Here’s what I was not happy about: the fact that everyone I had ever met all of a sudden felt it was appropriate to comment on my physical appearance. Casual acquaintances felt like it was perfectly reasonable to start asking me about my weight and size. Family members would tell me how good I looked now, and I couldn’t help but feel bad for me from a year ago, who I had loved, but apparently everyone else was thinking could be a lot better. I have never felt so uncomfortable in my own skin in my life. I — a woman who has always felt infinitely more defined by my thoughts and humor than by a number on a scale — suddenly felt very self-conscious about everything. All of this new attention found me wanting to be sure to hide my flabby arms (because losing lots of weight leaves a lot of skin) and saggy boobs (because I’d been either pregnant and/or nursing for the last five years). And no matter how wrong I knew it was I couldn’t help but think to myself, ‘If people think I look good now, they’ll really think I look good if I lose 20 more pounds.’ This sudden (undeserved) praise from others has really wreaked havoc on all of my previously held ideas of positive body image and female empowerment. I have no answers.”

But we have some answers! Let’s start with why it’s so important to STOP talking about each others’ bodies – even in what we assume are nice ways – and then we’ll get to what we can do if we’re falling into a deep pit of appearance obsession that often comes from constant focus on our bodies.

First, you have learned firsthand that it is time to stop body policing. None of us have the responsibility to comment on the look of someone else’s body – not even the “nice” sounding stuff. Not in front of their faces or behind their backs. So often we turn to appearance-based conversation first as a default, and we must reconsider this automatic small talk. This is especially true for girls and women, who grow up hearing from all sides that they are things to be looked at above all else.

Too many females suffer the debilitating consequences of eating disorders, appearance obsession, body anxiety and depression, all in the name of trying to meet unattainable beauty ideals. Did you know hospitalizations for little girls with eating disorders is up 100 percent in the last decade? Help little girls recognize they are more than their bodies by choosing to avoid discussing the look of another woman’s body in media or real life. Did you know cosmetic surgery increased 446 percent in the last decade, with 92 percent of those voluntary procedures (mostly liposuction and breast enhancement) performed on females? Help ease the ever-more-powerful temptation for painful and expensive cosmetic surgery by never talking negatively about the look of another woman’s body in media or in real life. Did you know self-objectification is leaving even the youngest of girls and the oldest of women with fewer cognitive resources available for mental and physical activities, including mathematics, logical reasoning, spatial skills, and athletic performance?* Help stop this downward spiral of appearance obsession by changing the conversation from the look of another women’s body in media or real life to anything else.

We must make sure our dialogue reflects what we know to be true: We are not bodies to be looked at, judged, and constantly in need of fixing. We are capable of so much more than being looked at. We owe it to our sisters to shout that truth from every rooftop.

So friends, if you know someone who has lost weight and they aren’t publicly speaking about how they did it, don’t feel the need to talk about it. Don’t automatically praise them. Don’t publicly comment on their photos with “You look so skinny!” Just don’t.

Because you don’t know if they are working out and eating healthfully or depressed, sick, or suffering with an eating disorder or resorting to other unhealthy extremes to fit an unhealthy ideal. You just don’t know. And too often, those body-policing compliments of “Oh you look so AMAZING!” are exactly the motivation someone needs to continue down an unhealthy pathway of unsafe diet pills or over-exercising or disordered eating. Even just seeing those body-based comments on someone else’s pictures online over and over again can send someone else down that dangerous pathway. Other times, a disease or other illness could be causing your friend to lose weight beyond their control and “Did you lose weight?!” is the exact wrong type of compliment they want at the moment. We can do so much better than the constant body policing.

It’s time to value the women and girls in our lives for more than their looks. Dig deep next time you want to give a compliment. If you give a looks-based compliment, pair it with a character-based compliment. Say something nice about who they are, what they do, and how much you care about them outside of how they look. When we minimize other females to just their bodies, we forget to remind them of their beautiful talents, characters, and gifts. And we can unknowingly be giving them motivation to stay in unhealthy patterns so they keep “qualifying” for looks-based compliments. We are more than bodies, so let’s make sure to remind each other of that powerful truth.

But what if, like our friend’s example, you are at the receiving end of lots of looks-based compliments? What if you’ve lost weight recently and all that body policing about how “much better you look” is keeping you focused on yourself as a body to be looked at above all else? So often, those looks-based compliments just perpetuate the belief that looks are most important in your life. Once you’re riding the high of all those compliments, you have to continuously work harder to impress people in your life to give you more compliments. If they stop complimenting you, you start to feel like you just need to work a little bit harder to earn their praise. What a worthless and selfish cycle to be stuck in! You are so much more than a body to be looked at! (Sick of us telling you that yet?) Here are three surefire strategies to use the moment you feel yourself getting sucked into the worthless pit of looks-based obsession:

Change the Conversation.

Next time the dialogue starts to revolve around your looks and you get uncomfortable, take the opportunity to teach a little lesson in a kind and thoughtful way: “There are lots more interesting things to talk about than my body! Did you know I recently went on vacation?” or “BORING! Let’s talk about you. How is work going?” or throw in some honest vulnerability: “Thanks, but I’m more comfortable talking about lots of other stuff besides my body. How was your weekend?” or “To be totally honest, I have made a resolution to compliment women for stuff other than their looks because I feel like we get stuck talking about shallow stuff like physical appearance way too often!” or tell them you just read an awesome blog post about changing the conversation on looks-based compliments and you’ve vowed to do it (then send them this link, of course!)

Set a fitness goal.

Regardless of what you look like, or what you think you look like, you can feel good about yourself, because you are not your appearance. Your weight, size, and measurements are just numbers. Positive body image is the cornerstone of our work, and it is founded in the life-changing understanding that your body is an instrument to be used and not just an object to be adorned. Prove it to yourself by setting a fitness goal that will absolutely reinforce the truth that your body is powerful and capable and you are not just a decoration for the world to look at. Run a certain distance. Swim 10 laps faster than ever. Do a certain number of crunches, push-ups, pull-ups – any fitness achievement measured in actions. You will get the reward of endorphins released into your body to boost your mood, the empowerment of accomplishing a goal, and the satisfaction of proving you are more than a pretty face. It’ll snap you out of your self-objectifying rut in no time.

Throw away your scale.

Tracy Moore at Jezebel put this so well: “Ask yourself, ‘What exactly is going to happen when I reach magical X pounds?’ Force yourself to imagine the perfect life you think the perfect weight will bring you. What does it look like? You never argue with your husband? That guy you like at work will ask you out? The beauty of working toward real confidence by actually liking yourself is that it doesn’t disappear the moment you gain weight, it is always there, and anyone worthwhile is drawn to you because of that aura, not the fact that you’re at some specific number… Plus, numbers are misleading. There is no magic number for anyone. Paying attention to some perfect goal weight, at which point you imagine yourself to no longer have problems or somehow transcend the issues you faced with 20 more pounds is a complete and utter illusion. And a waste of time. And probably really about something else.

Our fans on Facebook also weighed in with their own experiences of hearing “You’re so skinny!” and it being exactly the wrong thing they needed to hear:

When my mom was sick and three months later passed away, I was so stressed out and grief-stricken that I lost about 20 lbs. Everyone at work complimented me and told me to keep doing whatever I was doing because it was really working for me.

I had a good friend who miscarried a baby, and a few weeks later a man at church commented on her looking “thinner and better!” and she said, “Yeah, I guess…” and he goes “C’mon, you gotta look on the bright side.” I wanted to punch him in the face.

I complimented a regular customer on her weight loss at the store where I worked when I was in my early twenties. She responded that she had cancer. Lesson learned.

I got this a lot while in the throes of serious depression. Black circles under my eyes, yet people, strangers even, would announce how “healthy and fit” I’d become! Know your audience or zip it. You may think you’re paying a compliment, but you’re really reminding someone of a bad situation!

I had similar feelings post-surgical delivery of my twins where I wasn’t eating nearly enough to be breastfeeding and was home alone with them 10 hours a day. I couldn’t move to get myself food. “What did you do to lose the baby weight?” was a reminder of the support I didn’t have. It was hard to answer positively and politely when the things people say make you feel like crap.

I lost about 30 lbs after finding out about my husband’s addiction. Friends kept asking me about my “weight loss secret”. It made me sick.

I was working in a restaurant and my parents would come in to eat a lot. My mom was losing a lot of weight and was having trouble eating because of what we later discovered was a faulty esophogeal valve. She went through test after test and after losing about 40 lbs we were worried that it might be stomach cancer. A manager of mine saw my mom one night and commented to me how great she looked (she was skin and bone) and I started to cry and said that the weight loss may be a sign of cancer to which she replied enthusiastically “I wish I could get cancer!!!”

I was at my thinnest during a period of intense anxiety and OCD. Not a great way to lose weight.

I am naturally a very petite person, but there was a time in my life where I went through some really traumatic experiences and as a result, I lost over 25 pounds. Since I am so small in general, this was awful. My hair was falling out, I was throwing up all the time, and I was so emotionally drained. People kept saying how pretty I looked and a bunch of teenage girls told me they wished they could be as skinny as I was…. Little did they know the physical damage that comes with being that small.

When I was in my 20s my mom and I visited one of her friends who had pancreatic cancer. Her chance of survival was not great. The chemo was making her vomit constantly. She pointed out her belt, that her husband had needed to punch new holes because she lost weight, in a “I’m happy about that” way. I reflected on how screwed up our society is to make a dying woman happy about losing weight. In a way that experienced help me to focus more on health and rejecting society’s screwed up focus!

A few years ago I lost a baby in the middle of my second trimester. I became depressed and must’ve lost weight, because over the next few months several people commented approvingly on how thin I looked. The irony of being complimented on my thinness during a time when I should have been full and round with the new life growing inside of me was almost too bitter to bear and more than once brought me to tears. I never felt very comfortable commenting on people’s weight before, but this experience really cemented it for me.

Yup, I had a mystery illness and lost 12 pounds in two weeks. Everyone thought I looked fantastic!! Lol.

Being complimented when I had lost weight because I was so unhappy and sick that I couldn’t force myself to eat was unsettling. I was asked how I did it. I replied that it wasn’t worth it.

I was always confident in my body, raised to value my intelligence and personality over my physical appearance. It wasn’t until I lost 20 pounds following a bad breakup that I began to understand the body insecurities that other girls my age dealt with. Having other girls tell me I ‘looked like a model!’ or that they were ‘omg sooo jealous!’ made me feel like my body before the weight loss was less attractive. I felt this urge to keep the weight off even though I felt awful and was completely unhealthy. It just goes to show how even someone with good self-esteem and body image can be brought down by ‘innocent’ comments.

My mum used to point to very overweight people and say “See you aren’t as big as her” and think that was a compliment. I was fit and healthy at the time so all it said was “I see u as fat.” Messed with my body image for years.

My father’s wife said “you’re still skinny” each time she saw me. I make a point not to comment on people’s’ appearance. I prefer to say “It’s great to see you”.

I received the most compliments when i lost 20 pounds, i was not well and therefore i couldn’t eat. When i started feeling better i slowly started to gain my weight back and exercising and people will criticize me on how i looked compared to when i was “beautiful.”

When I was in my early 20’s I was broke, depressed, and starving. I would get complimented, or, worse, I was accused of being anorexic. Thank you so much for bringing attention to this real issue, and making me realize that I was not alone.

If these comments aren’t enough to convince you that body-based comments aren’t helpful, we don’t know what is! Being conscious of our compliments is an important way to SEE MORE in ourselves and other women in our lives, so we all can BE MORE than women fixated on our bodies.

Need more help developing body image resilience that can help you overcome your self-consciousness and be more powerful than ever before? Learn how to recognize harmful ideals, redefine beauty and health, and resist what holds you back from happiness, health, and real empowerment with the Beauty Redefined Body Image Program for girls and women 14+. It is an online, anonymous therapeutic tool that can change your life.

Simone Biles and Aly Raisman, Olympic gold medalist gymnasts and celebrated role models for young women, are featured in the upcoming 2017 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. This is nothing to cheer about.

This is not progress for women or for Sports Illustrated. Women have always been valued for their bodies – especially very young, attractive, and fit women like Biles and Raisman. It wasn’t progress last year when “plus-sized” (but extremely beautiful, hourglass-shaped, young, white) Ashley Graham was on all fours in a bikini on the cover, and it wasn’t progress when literal supermodel Tyra Banks was their first black cover model pulling down her bikini bottom in 1997.

As if seeing more and different undressed bodies will reduce this world’s obsession with valuing women as bodies above all else. As if seeing more bodies could ever convince women they are more than bodies.

If you want women to be valued as equals to men, you do not cheer for their objectification — no matter what those women look like. The sexual objectification of people reduces humans to body parts, silences them, turns them into objects to be viewed and consumed, vessels for sexual pleasure, and less than fully human. If you care about women as more than bodies to be ogled, stop pretending like mainstream media allowing more body types to be objectified is progressive. Or empowering. Or healthy. Or body positive. It’s not. Individually and collectively, women’s progress is damaged by being valued as bodies alone.

The sexual objectification of women is at the root of women’s inequality and oppression — whether they choose to participate* or not. Because women are primarily valued for their sexual appeal at the expense of anything else, they are bought and sold to men, silenced, abused, mutilated, murdered, devalued, not believed, not taken seriously, and compelled to keep beauty at the forefront of their thoughts for life. As long as women are sexual objects first, and all of the rest of their humanity is secondary, they will never be on equal footing with men. This quote by author Ambrose Bierce in 1911 is as true today as ever:

“To men, a man is but a mind – who cares what face he carries or what he wears. But a woman’s body is the woman.”

Your reaction to the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is a litmus test for whether you are cheering for women’s empowerment or inadvertently cheering for their general oppression. Are you applauding the devaluation and objectification of women when you think you are applauding women’s progress and empowerment?

Let’s be clear. Anyone who thinks this magazine is doing anything other than objectifying female bodies to provide sexual stimulation for a targeted male audience while making millions for corporations — is kidding themselves*.

Women appear on less than 5% of SI’s covers, and the editorial content is similar. There’s no lack of female athletes to cover — those just aren’t the women SI values and they certainly aren’t doing the things SI values women for.

Their swimsuit models aren’t posed or displayed to look merely beautiful, or strong, or to show off their swimwear – they are posed and displayed to specifically emphasize their sexual appeal through all the typical poses found in Hustler or Penthouse, just like every other men’s magazine that features women. (See the video of Biles and Raisman’s photo shoot here for proof, at your own risk.)

People celebrate and cheer for women to be featured in the Swimsuit Issue as if they are being honored for their athletic accomplishments or any other achievements, and the magazine is doing a great service to humanity. PLEASE. The “honor” here is simply that this magazine has decided these new bodies will sell issues and subscriptions and get views on their videos and websites. All the while, women are doing the Swimsuit Issue’s unpaid PR and advertising work for them. Literally. Go look at the comments and posts about this worldwide trending topic of Aly Raisman and Simone Biles in the Swimsuit Issue, with the camera tilting up and down their bodies in cut-out, sheer bikinis while they lay splayed on the ground or with one leg over their heads. (Gymnasts are often fighting the sexualization of their sport, and this SI feature won’t make it any easier for them). Online, you’ll see cheers and praise from women of all walks of life congratulating SI for so graciously including these muscular young women among their ranks this year. To be sure, we don’t blame Aly Raisman or Simone Biles for their participation in the Swimsuit Issue. We wish they wouldn’t do it, but we recognize the huge rewards our culture gives women who buy into objectification as if it is a great honor to be chosen for a magazine like this. They are paid handsomely, fawned over, given huge publicity, and validated with likes, comments, followers and new fans in men and women alike.

A men’s sports magazine allowing new female body types in its sexy swimsuit issue is NOT a sign of progress for women. Do NOT let the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue be your barometer for women’s advancement.

As if seeing more and different undressed bodies will reduce this world’s obsession with valuing women as bodies above all else. As if seeing more bodies could ever convince women they are more than bodies.

We will always continue to advocate for more diverse representations of all women in mainstream media, but we’ll know progress is happening when those same women aren’t required to take their clothes off in order to be included. We need regular roles and representation for women of all shapes, sizes, colors and ability levels that do not revolve around what they look like. Seeing more women’s bodies undressed in media will not improve the status of women, regardless of what those women look like. This holds true for mainstream media like SI as well as social media run by regular individuals.

If you are applauding seeing more types of women’s bodies undressed in mainstream media

AND/OR

If you are an activist posting body-centric photos of yourself online

By Michelle Christensen for Beauty Redefined

…we know you are likely doing that for the purpose of promoting body acceptance and freedom from body shame. We also know that the internet is now absolutely flooded with the most diverse array of body photos you could ever imagine. Sharing photos of your particular body online, regardless of how you might perceive your “flaws,” will not move this work forward in a meaningful way. We firmly believe that part of the work is done. Consider that as the work of the first generation of body positive activists. They diversified the representation of women’s bodies online to help girls and women see that their bodies are OK even if they don’t look like the ones we’ve always seen in media. But it can’t end there. Now we must move on to the next generation of promoting positive body image. The second generation must move beyond the now-stagnant place of body photos with long captions about how those bodies are beautiful and worthy.Of course they are.But women are more than bodies, and we must back that up with the ways we choose to represent and value ourselves and all women, online or otherwise. Our objectifying culture silences women by putting the focus on their bodies at the expense of everything else about them.

Don’t be silenced.

We have to use our voices, our words, our talents, our creativity, and our unique skills — not just the appearance of our bodies — to be successful in teaching and encouraging others to feel good about themselves. If you are a scholar, activist, artist, or otherwise invested in promoting women’s empowerment, you already come into this work with a set of skills and viewpoints that can make your contributions impactful. We can’t and won’t tell you what to do or how to do it. We simply want you to consider this framework for determining whether or not something you are doing or something in mainstream media is promoting positive body image and empowerment, or if it is simply perpetuating the same old focus on women as bodies. That critical framework is summed up in the Beauty Redefined mantra: Women are more than bodies. See more. Be more.

Start with this criteria when evaluating a message created for the purpose of promoting positive body image and empowerment:

Self-objectification, or constant fixation on appearance (whether you like your appearance or hate it), is stifling the potential of too many girls and women by sapping their mental and physical energy and their self-esteem.Ask yourself: Is this message inviting people to turn their focus toward their own or others’ appearance? If so, how could it be modified to take the focus off of appearance and turn it toward other aspects of a woman’s humanity?

Having positive body image isn’t believing your body *looks* good, it is believing your body *is* good, regardless of how it looks. Ask yourself: Is this message perpetuating the idea that positive body image means just feeling good about the way your body looks? How could it be modified to encompass feeling positively about yourself and your body overall, not just what you look like? How could this message promote the idea of our bodies as instruments for our use, rather than ornaments to be looked at?

Often, female “empowerment” is co-opted and re-appropriated by people and companies that have their own best interests in mind and not women’s. Is the supposedly “empowering” effect of a woman buying into this message (for example, by doing/buying this thing) solely related to her appearance or sex appeal?Who, other than the women themselves, might be receiving any benefits from women believing this message is empowering? Is this message promoting “empowerment” in the same or similar ways people who hate women (but love women’s bodies) would want you to view “empowerment?” Would a person who thinks women are garbage also want women to do this thing being portrayed as “empowering?”

The progress and power of women hinges on our ability to be discerning about what constitutes empowerment, as opposed to what maintains the body-centric status quo. The same status quo where women are bought and sold to men, abused, mutilated, murdered, silenced, devalued, not believed, not taken seriously, and compelled to keep beauty at the forefront of their thoughts. It is up to each of us to learn and recognize the difference between faux empowerment that maintains our body fixation, and true empowerment that is self-determined, unable to be taken away by someone else, lasting, fulfilling, elevates our voices and contributions to the world, builds our confidence in our abilities and innate worth, and encourages us to see more in ourselves and others in order tobe more.

*Many people will say women are a portion of the audience for the Swimsuit Issue as a justification for why this outlet isn’t sexist or harmful. Nope. Unfortunately, women are often complicit in our own oppression and are greatly rewarded by this culture for doing so (rewards being: “cool girl” status, money, fame, likes, followers, etc., for playing by the rules of objectification). Lots of people will say that since these women chose to be objectified, that means it IS empowering for them. This is the classic argument of “choice feminism’ — where some people say that *any* choice a woman makes is implicitly feminist and/or acceptable and/or empowering because SHE made that choice. But that argument ignores the system that has oppressed women for centuries, teaching women they exist to be looked at and to serve men, and guess what? Those same “choices” are now being branded as empowering because women choose it “themselves” — like posing with your clothes off for a men’s magazine, or prostitution (not to conflate the two), or literally anything else that upholds male supremacy and rewards the male gaze. We strongly disagree with this perspective because we know sexism is systemic, and solutions have to be systemic too. See more on this at Feminist Current if you’re interested in a deeper analysis of this argument.

Lindsay and Lexie Kite, PhDs, are co-directors of the Beauty Redefined foundation, founded in 2009, and identical twins with doctorates in the study of body image resilience. They travel the US speaking at universities, high schools, and conferences about how to identify objectifying ideals and overcome them to get to a more powerful, healthy place. They also host an online course to promote body image resilience in girls and women ages 14+. Learn more about it here.

(This was originally posted in August 2014. We’re republishing as a refresher following Donald Trump’s selection of Carl’s Jr. CEO Andrew Puzder as U.S. Labor Secretary. See Puzder’s very telling quotes about objectification below. See Lindsay’s remarks in the Boston Globe on Dec. 10, 2016 about Puzder’s nomination here. )

By Lexie Kite, Ph.D., and Lindsay Kite, Ph.D.

SEX SELLS! Right, Carl’s Jr.?

The problem with everyone that uses idealized women’s bodies for their “sex sells” campaigns is that this is the least sexy thing they could possibly be selling. Messages that depict one narrow definition of “hot” and one way to think about, view, and use women — solely as an object for sexual pleasure — are actually damaging sexuality for both sexes by limiting what we perceive as “sexy” and keeping all of us preoccupied with looking “sexy” rather than enjoying sexuality.

Sexual objectification (ex: Carl’s Jr. commercials) is the process of representing or treating a person like an object that exists to serve another’s sexual pleasure. All hours of the day on mainstream TV, Carl’s Jr. among many others sells the common and dangerous lie that women are valuable for how sexy they appear to others. Because women’s sexuality isn’t for themselves, it’s for others’ viewing pleasure, right? Nope. We’ve posted about Victoria’s Secret, SI Swimsuit Issue, and many others, but today it’s time to talk about Carl’s Jr.

They teach girls and women they exist to be viewed and they must judge themselves by their sexual desirability to others, rather than in terms of their own health and desires. And with that life-threatening line of thinking comes depression, eating disorders, shame, decreased cognitive functioning, sexual dysfunction and inability to find satisfaction and pleasure in sexual experiences.* Suuuper sexy, right?

They work as a tool used to dehumanize, control, and abuse women. Viewing someone as an object is “almost always the first step toward justifying violence against that person.” It makes it easier to mistreat women when they are seen as objects – not people.*

But Carl’s Jr. doesn’t care about the public health crisis to which they are proud contributors. When women complain about their sexist ads, CJ literally replies with, “You aren’t our target demographic of 18- to 35-year-old men so we don’t care.” They only care about money. “The people we wanted to target were young, hungry guys. …We target hungry guys, and we get young kids that want to be young hungry guys,” says Andrew Puzder, CEO of Carl’s Jr.’s parent company and newly selected Labor Secretary under President-elect Donald Trump. He told Enterprise in May 2015: “I like our ads. I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it’s very American. I used to hear, brands take on the personality of the CEO. And I rarely thought that was true, but I think this one, in this case, it kind of did take on my personality.” Congratulations, Andrew! Your brand of blatant, proud dehumanization of women – equating objectified women’s bodies with the meant he wants “young hungry guys” to consume – is the reason we have to fight for women to be viewed as more than just bodies.

If Carl’s Jr. doesn’t care about women, let’s talk man to man.

Since BR’s co-directors are women (identical twins Lexie and Lindsay Kite), Lexie’s husband Travis has decided to step up to the plate. Travis is a “young, hungry guy” who fits squarely within CJ’s target demographic of 18-35, and he’s taking his appetite elsewhere. Will you?

To my fellow 18- to 35-year-olds:

Why do things have to be the way they are? Why does our demographic have to represent the scuzziest our society has to offer? When advertisers want our attention their first move is to wave some form of sex in our face. Sure that’s a given, but it doesn’t have to be. They keep using sex because we keep taking the bait. Because, sex sells, right? And we hear that phrase a lot, but it’s a little misleading. The advertisers aren’t using sex per se; they’re using women’s bodies. They take women and strip them down (literally and figuratively), removing everything that makes them human beings, and for years we’ve essentially said with our dollars that we were cool with it.

So now we come to Carl’s Jr. They took what all the other advertisers had done, then they went a little further, and then they deep fried it. And it makes me sick. And if it doesn’t make you sick, then you should probably turn off your internet machine, think really hard about how numb you are to stuff that is doing a lot of harm, and just have a conversation with a real woman. And just maybe think for one second about what it means for women to turn on the TV and see basically every woman stripped down to sell you things. Things as stupid as hamburgers. Don’t you see it!? Women are more than objects!

Sure, Carl’s Jr. isn’t the only one out there pulling this sort of crap, but why not start by pushing back against a company run by guys like Andrew Puzder who are brash enough to combine women and meat and feed it to us like we’re animals. Let’s stop buying their hamburgers. You can stop until they change their campaign or you can stop for life (I’ll probably #cutthecarls for life because I think they’re a bunch of jerks). We never should have let it get this far. Maybe, like me, you’ve cared about women and how they feel about this sort of thing all your life, but have mostly been on the sidelines. Well it’s time to step up to the plate, son. Let’s “man up” (to borrow their marketing slogan) and close down some Carl’s Jr.’s. And don’t stop there. There’s a lot of this business of treating women like they’re something less than human beings. Talk to any woman and she’ll tell you about it. This is about a lot more than not eating hamburgers. This is about showing the women you care about (and everyone else) that you won’t put up with this demeaning crap. You ain’t gotta buy it. If you don’t want to help then … whatever. You and the guy who lives in his mom’s basement can go get some soggy burgers and talk about Transformers 5 to your heart’s content.**

Here’s how you can join us:

Share this post with Travis’s photo, or your own similar photo, asking others (especially 18- to 35-year-old men) to #cutthecarls.

Take to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and all of social media to talk back to Carl’s Jr. and tell them you’re taking your appetite elsewhere. Go nuts with the hashtags #cutthecarls and #morethanmeat.

Check out what others are doing in this same fight! As we were writing up this campaign, a guy named Ryan Hawks posted his own plea to talk back to CJ, and we jumped on his #cutthecarls hashtag to keep the momentum going!

Most of all, full-on boycott Carl’s Jr. Not even on a road trip when it’s the only restaurant for miles. Vote with your dollars.

Check out part of our CNBC interview from September 2014 here. (Of course they featured a highly objectifying Carl’s Jr. ad for much of the segment, so be aware of that imagery. Feel free to listen, not watch.) Read Lindsay’s remarks in the Boston Globe on Dec. 10, 2016 about the Puzder nomination here.

Need help developing body image resilience that can help you overcome your self-consciousness and be more powerful than ever before? Learn how to recognize harmful ideals, redefine beauty and health, and resist what holds you back from happiness, health, and real empowerment with the Beauty Redefined Body Image Program for girls and women 14+. It is an online, anonymous therapeutic tool that can change your life, designed by Lexie & Lindsay Kite, with PhDs in body image and media.

*We won’t make you read our whole Ph.D. dissertations (Kite, 2013 & Kite, 2013), so we’ll direct you to this awesome report from the American Psychological Association that rounds up huge amounts of research on objectification and its effects on society here.

**We decided to leave Travis’s words unedited, though his last sentence is a departure from our regular tone. No offense to anti-objectification basement dwellers was intended.